Review Summary

There is something indescribably odd about Thierry Guetta, the antic Frenchman and Ron Jeremy lookalike who guides our experience — and would like to guide our perceptions — of “Exit Through the Gift Shop.” Perched in front of the camera, sporting the kind of facial-hair-and-fedora combo that usually signals major thinning on top, Mr. Guetta is constantly in motion. Legs pumping and arms waving, he narrates the story of his rise to infamy in the art world as if no one would believe it. Perhaps we shouldn’t. “Exit” is billed as “a Banksy film,” but Banksy, the notoriously reclusive British street artist, appears only rarely, face hooded and voice distorted. Even so, it is Banksy whom audiences will come hoping to see, stimulated by the canopy of hype that this artist has carefully erected, in interviews and on the festival circuit. What they will find is, like Banksy’s best work, a trompe l’oeil: a film that looks like a documentary but feels like a monumental con. — Jeannette Catsoulis